Hurricane Katrina 2 year anniversary tribute

Katrina had barely made landfall when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. assigned the blame for the very existence of Katrina on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, in this post from the Huffington Post, because he had opposed supporting the Kyoto Protocol. in a true Kennedyesque rhetorical flourish, the last line of the blog post states:

In 1998, Republican icon Pat Robertson warned that hurricanes were likely to hit communities that offended God. Perhaps it was Barbour’s memo that caused Katrina, at the last moment, to spare New Orleans and save its worst flailings for the Mississippi coast.

aaaah...the era of the politicalization of weather had begun...


according to this satellite image, it's looking pretty threatening...NEW ORLEANS.


who could forget the school busses which were available to evacuate people?

"COOL! FREE STUFF!!"


"brownie" doin' a "heckuva job"...


sean penn joins rescue effort...OOPS! ...springs a leak.

one of my all-time favorites: civil rights leader randall robinson claims that the black folks in new orleans have been reduced to cannibalism...

"It is reported that black hurricane victims in New Orleans have begun eating corpses to survive."

. later retracted, but not until this comment had gone nuts on the blogosphere, exposing racist white amerikkka....

Even though Robinson intended to show the callousness of the Bush administration, for many whites the claim seemed entirely plausible and has spread throughout the Internet with heated debates on how likely cannibalism might be. That the claim was originally publicized by a black leader meant that spreading it could not be criticized as a racist act.

Pres. Bush promises that New Orleans will be rebuilt, promises massive aid...aid sent, immediately goes into somebody's pocket who it wasn't intended for.

Brad Pitt, recently surveying the "progress", or lack of, in New Orleans, called Katrina a "man-made" disaster. he's right. you've got hundreds of thousands of people living off of government assistance living in a city which is below sea level. you've got a government warning system which for AT LEAST 3-4 days gave warning to the gulf coast, which the people all over ignored. you've got a CATEGORY FIVE hurricane on the way, and a city and state government which is completely aware of the implications, and doesn't act. you've got a federal government caught with it's pants down entirely. you've got a president who can't seem to connect, or act, or do anything constructive at all. you've got residents who figure as long as they can't feed themselves or have anyplace to live anymore, need to steal big-screen TVs. then, you have a media and a political party who refuse to offer constructive criticism...and are only too happy to pour gas on the fire to enhance their political power.

the perfect wiggle? Jessica Alba

it's a scientific study.

Jessica Alba, the film actress, has the ultimate sexy strut, according to a team of Cambridge mathematicians.

The academics found that it is the ratio between hips and waist that puts the sway into a woman's walk - and the nearer that ratio is to 0.7, the better.

This ratio provides the body with the right torso strength to produce a more angular swing and bounce to the hips during the walking motion.

Therefore, a woman with a 25in waist and 36in hips would have just the right proportions to carry off a sexy swagger as she walks.

The Jessica Alba sashay beat off competition from Kate Moss, Angelina Jolie and even Marilyn Monroe, whose walk along a railway platform in Some Like It Hot is one of the most famous in film history.

While Monroe was a fraction off the target ratio with 0.69, the Cambridge team said that Alba had the perfect proportions.

thankgod somebody studies this stuff. but...what i wanna know is:
did derek jeter give jessica herpes????

Keith Richards DRUNK???

maybe they'll quit now.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has demanded an apology from Swedish newspapers for their scathing reviews of the group's performance in the country earlier this month.

Tabloids Expressen and Aftonbladet gave thumbs down to the Aug. 3 concert at Ullevi stadium in Goteborg, with Expressen suggesting Richards was "superdrunk" on stage.

come to think of it, i saw the Stones when they were already too old to be taken seriously. it was 1981, at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando. the stage dwarfed them. as much as Mick skipped around the stage in his leotards, it couldn't hide the fact that the rest of the band were basically old, decaying statues parked way back off of the ramp thingys in the front of the stage. and...they sounded like crap. the stones music by this point was not suited at all for a football stadium. it was muddy, off-key, tempo-challenged, and impossible to watch. plus, the cheesy stage set, which was essentially 1980's-mall inspired, didn't help. (this isn't the actual stage set, but it's the cover of the live album from the tour):


see what i mean? it looks like something molly ringwald would wear. nothing wrong with THAT, mind you, but...THIS IS "THE STONES".

they suck so bad now. when's the last time they had a song anyone can remember? that "tattoo you" stuff was okay, but, that was over a quarter century ago. let me repeat that: A QUARTER CENTURY AGO. when they were ALREADY OLD.

anyway, keith is pretty pissed off about this review:

"This is a first!" the 63-year-old rock star wrote in a letter published by Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter. "Never before have I risen to the bait of a bad review.

"But this time ... I have to stand up ... for our fans all over Sweden ... to say that you owe them, and us, an apology."

waaaah waaaaah waaaaaaaaaaaaah.

obviously, mr. rockstar has reached the age where his skin is getting just a little too thin to be subject to judgment. god, that's hard to believe though...just look at the picture above. did he have kevlar injections? i thought that stuff doesn't rust!!!

Castro names his favorite U.S. president:

no surprise there...

from a "new essay" released by the "still alive" Castro this week:

"I only knew one who for ethical-religious reasons was not complicit to the brutal terrorism against Cuba: James Carter," Tuesday's essay read — though it noted that a law banning U.S. attempts to assassinate foreign leaders such as Castro took effect during Gerald Ford's administration

i guess Fidel thought Ford was a wuss or something...

Pres. Clinton got no love, as hard as he may have tried...

Newspapers fear Muslims...AGAIN...refuse to run "Opus"

the offending cartoon strip (Sunday's...no. 1 of 2...)



FOXNews story
Strip enlarged on Salon.com

"Sources told FOXNews.com that the strips were shown to Muslim staffers at The Washington Post to gauge their reaction, and they responded "emotionally" to the depiction of a woman dressed in traditional Muslim garb and espousing conservative Islamic views.

There was also considerable alarm over the strip at the highest echelons of The Washington Post Co., according to the sources."

(Writer's Group comics editor Amy) Lago said she flagged some of the syndicate's newspaper clients for two reasons: because of the possibility that the jokes about Islam would be misconstrued and because of the sexual innuendo in the punchline.

"The strip came in and I knew we would have to send out an alert to all the newspapers," Lago said. "I do that fairly regularly with materials that might pose issues for local areas. ... We knew that because it was a sex joke, it could raise issues. And there is another client that has issues with any Muslim depiction whatsoever."

what a bunch of chickenshits...

another Republican sex scandal

note to Sen. Craig:

Do everyone a favor and just RESIGN. NOW.

It's not because you're gay (if you indeed are). It's not because you were busted soliciting gay sex.

It's HOW you did it. Come on, trying to get all funky in an airport bathroom? Dude, you're a U.S. SENATOR. Look at how former Rep. Mark Foley is handling any investigation into his internet sex thingy with his former interns...NOBODY is allowed to look at his computer! That's a congressional rule! In other words, Sen. Dumbass...YOU COULD'VE GOTTEN AS NASTY AS YOU WANTED TO ON GAY CHATROOMS, and DISCREETLY met your buddies at any fancy hotel in the country. BUT NOOOOOOO...you needed the EXCITEMENT.

"So what?" you might ask. "Who's this hurting?" "It was consensual." Let's put it this way, hotshot...to THIS DAY, muslims all over the world hold to the belief that Monica Lewinsky was an Israeli agent, sent to blackmail President Bill "Horn-dog" Clinton into supporting Israel vis-a-vis the Palistineans. Whether that's true or not is not the issue... The problem is, because you're apparently incapable of keeping your doo-hickey in your watchpocket, in a public bathroom, no less--YOU'RE A NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT. your indescretion(s) makes you a perfect target.

And, PLEASE don't embarrass yourself by bitching about the media. WE ALL KNOW that there's a double standard...Kennedys get off on rape charges...Rep. Barney Frank has a gay prostitution ring running out of his office...Rep. Gary Condit murders Chandra Levy and gets saved by 9/11...yeah, we know, we know. Republicans have to go. That's just the way it is. Hypocrisy is the worst sin of all. Porn pimp Larry Flynt gets to be judge and jury. Deal with it.

Do the right thing, Senator.

Respectfully,

J.R. Deluxe

you can't hit a girl.

who can forget the NY Senate debate in 2000 when Rick Lazio, the Republican candidate,
tried to get Hillary! to sign a contract pledging to not accept soft-money donations, etc... Lazio immediately became the whipping boy of the press and the Democrat-leaning punditry...he was seen as "invading her space"..."threatening" her...trying to "intimidate" her...etc... this was in the same election cycle, remember, where Algore stood in W's face during a debate (to the point where Bush gave him the "WTF?" look..).

in other words, the whole claim of Clinton's people that Lazio was "bullying" her was ridiculous, but it sent a message that's reverberating into the 2008 presidential election. isn't it interesting how michelle obama and elizabeth edwards are making news all over the place because THEY, not their candidate HUSBANDS, are the ones "attacking" Hillary!?

when Hillary! finally gets the nomination next summer, will the Republican nominee be allowed to criticize her at all?? this remains to be seen....

shirtless Putin....what does it mean??

the story in the MoscowTimes.com is titled
"Shirtless Putin Gets Tongues Wagging". according to the article, Russian women are mighty impressed by the Russian leader's "vigorous torso". gay chat rooms in Russia suggest that:

"...Putin, by stripping to his waist, was somehow pleading for more tolerance of homosexuality in Russia -- where gays and lesbians are for the most part forced to remain closeted."

sorry, gay Russians...i think the ladies of Russia are onto something. i think that Putin is trying to inject some testosterone into a dying Russian society.

whether it's because they're flagellating themselves for sins of the past or because the decades under communist rule sapped their desire to preserve the future, the facts are that Russia is in a population death spiral, with severely low birthrates and a diseased, hard-drinking/hard-smoking population dying off early on the back end. Russia is loaded down with natural resources which could enrich their country, but if they have no Russians to harvest these, what good will they do? and, not only that, will there be enough Russians to defend their vast country? who, exactly, is supposed to stop the Chinese if they decided to expand into Russian territory?

Russia is growing to great lengths to reverse this trend. this article from MSNBC describes how one region in Russia has declared that Sept. 12 be a "Day of Conception", where employers will allow employees to take the day off to get it on, and produce a buttload of new "patriots" nine months later. according to the article, in his state of the nation address last year, Putin called the demographic crisis the most acute problem facing Russia and announced a broad effort to boost Russia’s birthrate, including cash incentives to families to have more than one child.

British writer Edward Lucas sees something more sinister afoot. in his article
"Sex For The Motherland: Russian Youths Urged to Procreate at Camp", Lucas describes what he calls a "cult"-like movement being sponsored by Putin and the Kremlin (pictured below):

this is a gathering of an organization called "Nashi", meaning "Ours":

"Nashi's annual camp, 200 miles outside Moscow, is attended by 10,000 uniformed youngsters and involves two weeks of lectures and physical fitness.

Attendance is monitored via compulsory electronic badges and anyone who misses three events is expelled. So are drinkers; alcohol is banned. But sex is encouraged, and condoms are nowhere on sale.


Bizarrely, young women are encouraged to hand in thongs and other skimpy underwear - supposedly a cause of sterility - and given more wholesome and substantial undergarments."

Lucas doesn't see this as an effort to reverse the downward population trend...he sees it as more of a "Hitler Youth", anti-democracy movement. okay, maybe, i don't really know. his thesis gets lost in the article, in my opinion. i will grant that it's weird.

i'm in love....

">

"Against Me!" -- "peace punks" can't take criticism

the lead singer of "against me!", an up and coming punk rock band from my neck of the woods here in gainesville, FL, was arrested monday night for smashing some poor guy in tallahassee's head into a wooden counter. why? because the guy asked him why he crumbled up and threw away an article about Against Me! with some dirty words written on it. from the report in the tallahassee paper it's impossible to tell how this exchange went down, except that some guy that worked at the All Saint's Cafe said that the guy wasn't looking for a fight. ...the guy that got his head smashed into the counter, that is...

idolator.com has a good take on it...

"Now that's not how a good anarchistic peace punk should act. It is, on the other hand, exactly how a major label rock star should act."

these guys have gainesville's collective nose up their ass, and apparently many on the national scene feel the same way.

some thoughts from their "hometown fans" in gainesville...

a list of terror websites either based or hosted in the west

there are links to at least 23 sites at this page.

"I'm a better mother when I'm stoned"

i've known countless parents who not only
agree with this but actively parent this way. i've never really heard any of them express that it "made them a better parent", but since their pot-smoking habit is so ingrained into their behavior, they don't know how to deal without it.

i'm no saint here. i've been known to smoke the herb from time to time (among other things *wink wink*...i went to COLLEGE, y'know?), but i've never actually brought a child into this world!

the mother who wrote the essay describes a morning where she finally broke down and started using pot to help her with dealing with her kid. she describes a situation where the kid won't take a bath, and then when she finally gets him to, he won't get out. then he pitches a fit and she decides to ignore it and sit down and read a book. the kid rips the book from her hands, tearing out some pages in the process. she decides she needs to get a change of scenery, and shoves the kid in the car and drives to the mall...

..."But when we arrived, I realized that it was my internal scenery that really needed changing. I walked to the rear of my car and stuck my head in the trunk, pretending to fumble for my diaper bag while I took a quick and furtive toke off my one-hitter"...

okay, she's driving a car carrying drugs with her. good job, mom. and a kid. way to go.

"We'll see how this works, I thought to myself, feeling a bit guilty about breaking my rule against toasted childcare. But it turned out I could not only manage taking care of my son while I was high; I could excel. As I had nothing in particular I needed to accomplish at the shopping center (except saving my sanity), I decided to let my son lead the way. Rather than taking his hand and dragging him along behind me as I usually do on shopping trips, I let my son decide where we would go, what we would look at and how much time we would spend in each aisle. He delighted in calling my attention to each shiny object, and I delighted in listening to his descriptions. "Look, Mommy! This frog has spots!" "Mommy! Come here! It's a spinny top!" And when he said look, I really, really looked. Earlier, I'd wanted to kill this kid, and now I was hanging on his every word and absorbing his every observation. A few minutes earlier, I saw him as an irritant. Now he was an inspiration."

yeah, kinda like a lava lamp...one with arms & legs, and with a brain that requires a parent to lead it around and teach it how to grow up to be a good person who is capable of taking care of himself and hopefully to take care of any kids he may decide to head. this woman thinks raising a kid is like watching "pink floyd's the wall" or something...that one makes you think and watch, too, but in the end it really doesn't teach you anything that's useful at all.

in my experience, smoking pot does nothing for "expanding your mind" or anything like that. it causes your senses to myopically focus on certain things, and shuts down or deadens the other senses in order to not break the concentration on the "wonders" you're experiencing. the mom who wrote the essay agrees with this:

.."In an ideal world, I'd be able to do all of these things without the help of an herb. But the world isn't ideal. It's full of overflowing laundry hampers, dirty dishes and unanswered email. Pot's much-maligned amotivational properties I would term an enticement to "single-tasking." Erecting a temporary smokescreen is a way to block out the demands that take my attention away from my child. Plus, it makes Teletubbies a whole lot more interesting."

lady, it also cuts down on your awareness, which hopefully for you will not cause you someday to miss something which may protect your child from harm. and, if you'd just learn some way to discipline your child in whatever new-age way is in vogue now, you wouldn't need it.

i can't understand why parents would want to go through the child-rearing stage in a purple haze. your memories will be tainted, and you'll miss more than you'll ever realize.

foot-and-mouth outbreak update...

from the Jawa Report..

Dr. Andrew King, brought in by the Institute of Animal Health (IAH) to investigate:

"As far as I am concerned the authorities have failed to find any chink in the armoury of the establishment's bio-security. What you are left with is human movement, which is not a matter for the institute, it's a police matter. It's very, very unlikely that it could be spread by accident. People do not spread the disease easily."

previously reported on NGNG here.

Democrats "gay" debate

this is interesting, and since it only was seen on the "Logo" network, it was probably only seen by a few thousand people, max.

i actually like the format. each candidate got to sit down in front of a panel of gay people (one of them melissa ethridge), and took questions from them. none of this all-lined-up-on-a-stage-looking-stupid stuff.

i hope more of this gets posted online, but for now, a condensed version (10 minutes) is all i see available so far. the version i've posted below was edited by someone at townhall.com (warning: CONSERVATIVE), but, it's still informative...

more PROOF that you can't trust Reuters...

as if the doctored and outright staged photos from last summer's dustup between hezbollah and israel weren't bad enough, now they've fallen for footage from the movie "Titanic" to illustrate Russia's conquering and laying claim to the North Pole.

good work, Reuters!

a 13 year old Finnish boy, Waltteri Seretin, found the error.

reuters story...maybe with new image...

global warming data compromised by a Y2K bug

Little Green Footballs has the link to the story...

apparently, the "silent changes" NASA made to it's earlier findings show that 1934, NOT 1998, was the HOTTEST year on record. (no mention of how many SUVs were around then or how much toilet paper was used...)

the MSM, to my knowledge, is still silent on these findings.

man lives in car, uses backyard for potty, and listens to rush limbaugh.

i thought it might have been a joke...

collapsed bridge...part II

i almost forgot this little tidbit, which would go a long way in explaining why the somalis in minneapolis feel threatened by the collapse of the I-35 bridge. apparently, somalis control a significant portion of the taxi service in the twin cities area. according to this USA Today article from Sept 2006:

Minneapolis-St. Paul is concerned that its taxi service is deteriorating. Citing their religious beliefs, some Muslim taxi drivers from Somalia are refusing to transport customers carrying or suspected of carrying alcohol. It started with one driver a few years ago, but the average number of fare refusals has grown to about three a day, says airport spokesman Patrick Hogan. "Travelers often feel surprised and insulted," he says. "Sometimes, several drivers in a row refuse carriage."

Taxi drivers and officials from the airport, taxi companies and the Muslim American Society are discussing how to address the issue. Partly out of concern that taxi drivers might be citing religion to avoid short-distance fares, the airport is now forcing drivers who refuse a fare to go to the end of the line for waiting taxis. It is not a popular decision among drivers, Hogan says.

The airport is expected to propose today that drivers who wish to avoid alcohol-toting passengers change the light on their car roofs, possibly to a different color. Hogan says the move will help let airport employees and customers know which taxis serve alcohol-carrying passengers. Drivers refusing a fare won't have to go to the end of the line. "Airport authorities are not in the business of interpreting sacred texts or dictating anyone's religious choices. ... Our goal is simply to ensure travelers at (the airport) are well served."

i wonder what these authorities would say if a cab driver was a member of the KKK and refused to pick up catholics or african-americans because of his religious beliefs?

anyway, since i guess this somalian taxi army has to cross this bridge constantly, they probably feel targeted in some way. where's my tiny violin when i need it?

LET your fares carry alcohol. this is AMERICA, dammit!!

collapsed bridge another sign of rampant islamophobia

twilight zone stuff here.

it's impossible to add anything at all to this story. okay, i guess that bastard Bush is responsible for this fucking bridge falling down, because he's diverting the resources which, of course, would've instead been earmarked to do the necessary repairs to fix that piece of shit.

can we please stop everything and completely fix every last fucking piece of our infrastructure, like yesterday? if i have to hear the dems crying about this shit (which, of course they never mentioned until after the fact...remember Katrina? the levees?) up until the election i'm going to shoot myself in the face.

below: when somalis are not being threatened by collapsing american bridges...



desecration of dead bodies, anyone?

foot-and-mouth outbreak in Great Britain

i was originally inclined to blame global warming, but now "sabotage" is suspected, according to this story in todays Times Online...

about all i really know about this disease is from watching the paul newman movie, "Hud", in which an outbreak occurs on his ranch and the feds swarm in and oversee a mass slaughter of their entire herd of cattle. patricia neal was extremely sexy in this movie...

okay, she was pretty hot in "the day the earth stood still", too, but i was talking about "Hud"...

my girlfriend asked me "what is foot-and-mouth disease?", and proceeded to tell me about her trip to England when "mad cow disease" was running rampant. honestly, i didn't really have a clue, since to the best of my knowledge, it's pretty much been eradicated. except, according to Wikipedia, in the UK where it apparently resurfaces from time-to-time.

since it seems to pop up every once in a while, this throws a wrench into the islamo-fascist bio-terror theory which i'm sure most bloggers were salivating to get their hands on. it may still happen to be the case, but i guess we'll just have to let the brit authorities do their jobs for now.

i would remind them that muslims consider pork to be unclean...

...this would actually be a great idea for the question posed in the New York Times today, "If you were a terrorist, how would you attack?"
just imagine how much you could divide a country if you pit terrorism hawks against PETA members...farmers vs federal agricultural dept agents...meat eaters vs vegetarians...etc...

OMIGOD!!! more global warming fears!!!

according to this article, we're looking at a future with MORE volcanoes, MORE tsunamis, MORE earthquakes, MORE landslides.

unfortunately for "Mr. Carbon Footprint" himself, Robert Murray, chairman of the Murray Energy Group...anyone who mines coal can't use "earthquake" as an excuse for mining disasters, because "earthquake" from now on will be a protected term to only be applied where it is most politically "advantageous".

maybe the list above should include MORE bridge collapses. hold on, i thought rosie taught us all that there is NO WAY that FIRE can melt STEEL, and NOW we're supposed to believe that a few days of 90+ degree weather will cause it to buckle and collapse?

The British Are Leaving! Great Britain, that is...

i ran across this link earlier today on instapundit's blog: "4000 People a Week Trying to Leave UK"

The country’s biggest foreign visa consultancy firm has revealed that applications have soared in the last seven months by 80 per cent to almost 4,000 a week. Ten years ago the figure was just 300 a week....They are almost all young professionals and skilled workers aged 20-40.

i wonder why? according to the visa consultancy firm referenced above:

Director Liam Clifford says: "Since January 2007, we have recorded an 80% rise in British nationals applying to move overseas. As this rise continues, so does the number of enquiries we receive from people asking for help in migrating to a new country. In recent months, we have received as many as 4,000 requests in a single week from people who have had enough of Britain and want to get out."

He adds: "Ironically, the main reason for these people leaving the UK is the over-stretching of services caused by inbound immigration to the UK. We are aware of the issue of so-called ‘white flight’ from certain inner city areas to the suburbs but now people are increasingly seeking a better standard of living offered by other countries.

"This phenomenon adds to the existing shortage of skilled workers already faced by the UK as they leave only to be replaced by low skilled EU A8 workers or low skilled refugees."

this problem has apparently been creeping up for years, but has literally exploded recently. i found this article from the august 31, 2006 issue of the christian science monitor warns of the same problem. it references a "recent" BBC report which found that 13% of Britons planned to emigrate in the near future!!

the CS monitor article (from '06) pointed out that 350,000 Brits were emigrating each year. the latest stats that 4000 Brits were trying to obtain visas to live abroad each week adds up to 4000 X 52 weeks = 208,000/year trying to officially leave, which is less than the previous figure--maybe they don't take into account people who just leave without applying for the visa. anyway, those are HUGE numbers.

why the hurry to leave? could it have anything at all to do with THIS?



check out the guy's sign on the left: "EUROPE IS THE CANCER, ISLAM IS THE ANSWER".

does this leave any question about what's happening?

British Muslim blogger Yahya Birt weighed in on this issue on dec 31, 2006, in a long post on his blogsite. the post is pretty interesting, because it's mainly a critique of a book called "Time to Emigrate?" by George Walden, a former Conservative Education Minister. Birt argues, point by point, how Walden is a laughable "islamophobe". but, in reading the post, you can almost sense how stiff this guy Birt's spine is. it's pretty cocky stuff.

"(Walden) is particularly cutting about the English people’s hypocrisy and cant, and what he sees as their ability to trot out the usual platitudes about Islam and multiculturalism, without saying what they really think."

to me, this reads like a guy who knows he's onto something. further down:

"The English, with their usual stoic resignation, rather than kicking up a fuss about these sea-changes, he argues, are quietly leaving. The lion no longer roars but is abdicating."

i don't know how much of this last quote was Walden's or Birt's, but Birt seems to take a certain glee in paraphrasing it. "the lion no longer roars but is abdicating"...a.k.a. giving up. scary stuff.

couple this with Mark Steyn's thesis which he lays out in "America Alone" that europeans don't have enough babies to sustain their population, and in order to afford the vast social services they expect, they have to import their population...which millions of muslims are only too happy to oblige. what a time bomb this whole situation is. declining birthrates + more muslim immigrants + political correctness + increasing muslim electoral power + radicalization of the muslim youth + "british stoicism" + "i'm starting to not recognize this place anymore" = LET'S GET THE HELL OUT OF DODGE.

british authorities are worried. their finding themselves sending more and more pensions abroad. in other words, CAPITAL DRAIN. the brains of britain are leaving, and are being replaced by unskilled laborers. maybe these guys should start passing around dogeared copies of "atlas shrugged"...



this is a link to a YouTube member who has posted an excellent british TV report on the radicalization of muslims in great britain.

Homeless Soccer heads to Gainesville

I'll admit it--when i first saw the headline "Will Soccer Solve Homelessness?", i LOL'd...literally.

but it's really not that stoopid!!

gainesville (FL) has recently enacted laws which prohibit panhandlers from begging from road medians. this, plus a crackdown on a "tent city" located a few blocks from downtown gainesville, led local activist Anthony Lyons to form a task force charged with creating a homeless soccer team which will be modeled on other such programs located, apparently (!), around the world. (PROOF: here's a link to a website for the "Homeless World Cup")

my original take on this was to just ridicule it, like The Yankee Hooligan does here:

"...Keeping with the spirit of the event, it looks as if they found it (the trophy cup...ed) in the garbage. Also, it isn't, unfortunately, a cup, so the winners still haven't got a pot (or cup) to piss in. Forget the trophy, why don't you give the winners a house?"

...pretty funny, but i think i can buy into the organizer's belief that playing soccer can provide structure and focus to some homeless folks' lives. and i especially buy into how, in order to play, you've got to be clean and sober.

i'm pretty convinced, in my own mind, that homelessness is a problem caused by laziness. i don't mean just that they're too lazy to get a job (though i would certainly agree with that), i mean that they're just too lazy to care. whether this is because of drinking and drugging, or some form of mental illness, or you lost your job therefore losing your house because you did NOTHING to prepare for the worst...there's something in the mind of a person that's just not right if it would allow you to allow yourself to fall that far down. life can be overwhelming at times, but most people have the faculties to at least keep a roof over their head. maybe this soccer stuff will reinforce positive thinking and behavior, provide a stage where they can feel some sense of accomplishment, etc... i just don't see the downside.

it's a lot better idea than the local church here in downtown gainesville which lets these bums come in stinking drunk or high on crack and lets them eat, sleep, and shower with no incentive to change behavior.




link to a video interview with gainesville organizer Anthony Lyons

Aaron is still the home run king in my book.

Mets fan "joe" on the MetsToday blog wrote a great post back in April where he makes a great case for why he thinks Hank Aaron will always be the home run king, and i agree with his analysis completely. the main gist of his argument is that, through radical shifts in baseball rules which gave all the advantage to the hitter, in order to increase baseball's "saleability", Barry Bonds has been able to eclipse Aaron's record while playing in an era where the pitcher is essentially pitching batting practice.

a few of his reasons to back this up:

-in Aaron's day, the brushback pitch was widely used by pitchers to establish the inside corner. today, if the ump decides a pitcher is intentionally throwing at a hitter, the pitcher can be ejected.
-today, as well as not having to fear being challenged inside by pitchers, batters can pretty much wear as much protective armor as they can still function in. batters can bat today without fear.
-the pitching mound was lowered by 5 inches.
-the strike zone was shrunk.
-their are twice as many teams now as there were during the majority of Aaron's career, diluting the available pitching talent.

there's more--i suggest reading his post.

of course, i could just be clinging to something that meant a lot to me as a youngster growing up in Alabama in the late 60's-70's. my dad used to make sure that he and I made the trek to Atlanta at least a couple times a year to catch Braves' games. he'd figure out when there were saturday double-headers scheduled and we'd catch as many as we could...even though we were probably at the lowest of the low end of the "middle class". i figure between 1969 and 1975 i probably saw a couple dozen Braves games. Not once did Aaron hit a home run in any of those games, which added insult to injury because i could probably count on about three fingers the number of times i saw the Braves WIN in that era...

Aaron also played in the Deep South at a time when the majority of white folks were totally hostile to him. i remember watching a game one saturday afternoon when i was about seven years old with my grandfather. because he, too, was a big baseball fan, i asked if he would someday take me to see the Braves play. knowing that Aaron was my hero at the time, he nixed that idea in no time flat:

"I'm not taking anybody to see some damn nigger over in 'niggertown'"

he didn't really have a problem with Willie Mays or Willie McCovey, but to actually have one of them so close to home was apparently more than he could deal with...

so, given THAT personal anecdote, i can only imagine what Aaron actually went through. Bonds might whine about how nobody respects him and vilifies him because of the steroid problem, but that's punk-ass shit compared to what Aaron went through his entire career.

and, let's face it...how "special" is the home run these days? in Aaron's day, you could win "home run titles" with 35 home runs some years. these days, that's a good All-Star break total. people like Brady Anderson can hit 50 home runs in a season? Bonds hits 73 in one season?? ridiculous.

i AGREE with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Cal) on this one..

she's calling for the US to boycott the Beijing Olympics.

she wants to boycott on account of china's support of the Sudanese gov't in the ongoing Darfur crisis. i agree with her on this.

in my opinion, she's usually a kook. more precisely, a lunatic.

i would boycott them as well just to not grant them a platform to propagandize on the world stage. they've completely warped whatever is left of the illusion of the "free market". their social engineering efforts emphasizing the abortion of female babies has created a nightmare scenario.
their CO2 emissions now have eclipsed those of the US, and they have no political or economic reason to change. not to mention the smog...

Pres. Carter caught a lot of grief for boycotting the Moscow Olympics. i STILL support him for this move. SO WHAT if these athletes have been training for YEARS to participate in these olympics? this is politics, pure and simple. we need to put china in it's place.

i know that geopolitically and economically it's not practical, but i still admire Rep. Waters' spunk.

U of South Florida -- terrorist haven?

a few days ago a couple of USF students were arrested in South Carolina near a navy base, where reportedly enemy combatants have been held. in the car authorities found what the suspects called "fireworks". authorities said that it appeared to be more.

the suspects names? Ahmed Abda Sherf Mohamed, 24, and Yousef Samir Megahed, 21. not surprising.

response from the Council on American Islamic Relations:

Ahmed Bedier, the executive director of a civil rights organization for Muslims in Tampa, criticized the arrest as racial profiling...

“Definitely this is not related to terrorism,” said Bedier, of (CAIR)...

“Had these been two good ol’ boys from South Carolina driving through and speeding — and even if they did have some fireworks — nobody would have been arrested,” Bedier said.

well, he would know.

the officers who pulled these guys over said they quickly hid a laptop when they were approached.

the "explosives" that were found were described to have been "built", though when the bomb squad detonated one it was described as a "loud bang"...no mention of shrapnel.

the two were charged with possession of an explosive device. no terrorism link has been established.

these guys think it's pretty funny...check out the picture above, and here is Mohamed's mug as he was being booked:

"what...me worry?"


USF was also the home of Dr. Sami Al-Arian, who was arrested and charged with supporting terrorist groups, and later made a plea deal where he admitted to supporting a palistinean terror organization and agreed to deportation from the US. this was after being found not guilty on 8 of 17 counts against him, and on the other 9 counts, the jury was in his favor (aquittal) by a 10-2 count in each case. what led to the plea bargain?

mainstream media coverage: on a scale of 1-10...about 1.5?

New Study: Walking worse than Driving to Earth's Climate!

i give up.

i bike to work, bike to the supermarket...pretty much bike everywhere i want to go, and now this:

“Driving a typical UK car for 3 miles [4.8km] adds about 0.9 kg [2lb] of CO2 to the atmosphere,” he said, a calculation based on the Government’s official fuel emission figures. “If you walked instead, it would use about 180 calories. You’d need about 100g of beef to replace those calories, resulting in 3.6kg of emissions, or four times as much as driving.

“The troubling fact is that taking a lot of exercise and then eating a bit more food is not good for the global atmosphere. Eating less and driving to save energy would be better.”

this guy is a GREEN party candidate for parliament.

Newsweek ties global warming "denial" to Nazis

an article in the August 13, 2007 issue of Newsweek magazine, "The Truth About Denial", decides to take on "the machine" of the cabal of "scientific" interest groups funded by the oil companies, other industrial interests, and their useful idiots in the US congress and other areas of the US government.

Pres. Clinton, who NEVER got 100% behind the effort of "stopping" global warming, despite having the guy who WROTE THE BOOK on it, ALGORE ("Earth in the Balance"), not to mention the propaganda flick "An Inconvenient Truth", and the "LiveEarth" concerts to raise awareness--wasn't able to muster a SINGLE vote in the US Senate to ratify the Kyoto Treaty...a Senate who's members at the time included John Kerry (quoted quite a bit in the article) and Teddy Kennedy. Clinton is given a pass in the article:

Although Clinton did not even try to get the Senate to ratify the Kyoto treaty (he knew a hopeless cause when he saw one)...

remember, the vote was like 95-0 or something, WELL after the "global warming hysteria was in full gear, and a good 5-6 years after the "Earth Summit" in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro supposedly galvanized the majority of the scientific community and the rest of the world on the "threat" and accuracy of the science.

anyway, "The Truth About Denial" makes undocumented claims based upon the premise that the "deniers" of global warming are all financed by industrial interests intendiing to "muddy the waters":

Sen. Barbara Boxer had been chair of the Senate's Environment Committee for less than a month when the verdict landed last February. "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal," concluded a report by 600 scientists from governments, academia, green groups and businesses in 40 countries. Worse, there was now at least a 90 percent likelihood that the release of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels is causing longer droughts, more flood-causing downpours and worse heat waves, way up from earlier studies. Those who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change have spent decades disputing that. But Boxer figured that with "the overwhelming science out there, the deniers' days were numbered." As she left a meeting with the head of the international climate panel, however, a staffer had some news for her. A conservative think tank long funded by ExxonMobil, she told Boxer, had offered scientists $10,000 to write articles undercutting the new report and the computer-based climate models it is based on.

interesting, no? who are these scientists? no answer in the argument, but since this statement was in the long first paragraph of a LONG article, why back it up?

but, we do get to learn these tidbits:

In what would become a key tactic of the denial machine—think tanks linking up with like-minded, contrarian researchers—the report was endorsed in a letter to President George H.W. Bush by MIT meteorologist Richard Lindzen. Lindzen, whose parents had fled Hitler's Germany, is described by old friends as the kind of man who, if you're in the minority, opts to be with you.

and, then:

Now naysayers tried a new tactic: lists and petitions meant to portray science as hopelessly divided. Just before Kyoto, S. Fred Singer released the "Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change." Singer, who fled Nazi-occupied Austria as a boy, had run the U.S. weather-satellite program in the early 1960s. In the Leipzig petition, just over 100 scientists and others, including TV weathermen, said they "cannot subscribe to the politically inspired world view that envisages climate catastrophes."

i would agree that a person's biographical information IS important when debating political topics, but a casual reading of this could influence someone to a negative opinion of their (Singer & Lindzen's) opinions.

a CHEAP SHOT, imho...

basically, this article states that the arguments "against" global warming/climate change are bought and paid for by oil/industrial interests, without naming names, and when it DOES name names they link it to Nazis/Hitler.

Sunday Morning Republican debate live blog

"Moderated" by George Stephanopolous in a special edition of "This Week"..

Drudge posted this link to the ABC news synopsis of the debate with the CLASSIC headline: OBAMA HAS 'GONE FROM JANE FONDA TO DR. STRANGELOVE' (update: link broken, my guess is that the drudge headline shut down the ABC site...will relink when possible)

steph plays a phone call sent from brownback campaign which accuses mitt romney of not really being pro-life. brownback stood by it. romney sez it's all a bunch of bull, re-affirms that he's pro-life. brownback points audience to youtube. romney responds that he's changed his position.
steph shows video of romney criticizing giuliani's positions on the "social issues". romney slightly backs off. giuliani responds....supports 2nd amendment, supports civil unions, and supports choice.
“what would be your strategy for ending the war in iraq?” – iowa voter on video
Ron paul – just come home. The war is not going well.
Duncan Hunter-- I’m tired of the stampede for the exit door.
Huckabee—1) get the neighbors involved 2) end dependence on mideast oil
Brownback—political situation deteriorating in iraq. 3 state solution as proposed by tom friedman.
McCain—if we lose, catastrophy…we’ll have to go back. Morale is good amongst the military.
Giuliani—weakness and appeasement should not be our policy. Cites NYTimes article: “we just might win in iraq”
Romney—commenting on Obama: “he’s gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in just one week”
Tancredo—was it even worth my time to come here? (steph sez, ‘I’m looking at you now’) “america cannot be the police force in iraq”.
T. Thompson—thinks iraq should be divided among the 18 states which have already existed since the 1920s.
Ron Paul—the war was planned by neo-cons before invasion. “unconstitutional, undeclared wars”
McCain—give it time to succeed.
Steph brings up health care….(question tries to pit sen. Grassley’s plan vs. bush’s veto warning)
Huckabee & T. Thompson—emphasize wellness before sickness, point out how most of the money spent is on treating the sick.
Tancredo—it’s not the responsibility of the fed govt to provide “womb to tomb” health care. Brings up how illegals are chewing up health care dollars.
Romney—we have to have our citizen’s insured. Personal responsibilty, help citizens buy their own insurance.
Giuliani—major tax deduction, $15K, to buy their own insurance.
Hunter—some story about how you can’t purchase health insurance across state lines…
Hunter—some story about how you can’t purchase health insurance across state lines…
Steph concludes everyone AGAINST grassley expansion.

Steph points out Obama’s comments about invading Pakistan, pits Giuliani vs Romney to debate it out:
Guiliani—argues that he didn’t “agree” with Obama, so much as he would not take the option off the table.
Romney—sez obama is confused as to who our friends are. To win “the war on jihad”, we need strong military, strong friends, and ultimately the muslims will have to defeat the jihadists.
Hunter—mentions geography (16K feet mountain ranges), etc…
Steph asks if the spread of democracy has been a “success”, and would that be the direction of “your” foreign policy:
Huckabee—seems to not favor the policy. Spend money here.
Ron Paul—spread democracy HERE…back to the “neo-cons”……..
Giuliani—democracy requires rule of law, stability….not necessarily elections first. Might have been a mistake to not form the “bedrocks” of democracy first. Points out how he brought back law and order in NYC.
McCain—law and order beginning to take place in iraq. To say we won’t use nukes is naïve. Sez he will continue to advocate for freedom and democracy.
Romney—spread the “benefits” of democracy to the world. “I’m not a carbon copy of Pres. Bush”. Draw the world towards modernity. …specifically, the world of islam towards modernity.

Steph questions Tancredo on his statement that he would bomb mecca and medina, because the state dept condemned it.
Tancredo—you’d be crazy to take this off the table.
T. Thompson—you can’t bomb religious artifacts.
Brownback—words of a leader MATTER. We’re a nation at war.

Steph: collapse of bridge. Is it time we raised fed gas taxes to fix the infrastructure?
Huckabee—it’s not just the bridges we have problems with. Let’s fix our infrastructure, not everyone else’s.
Giuliani—(gets in dig at liberal philosophy…) we don’t need to raise taxes to raise money. We can lower taxes to raise more money.
Romney—to raise more money, we have to grow the economy. Best way to keep economy rolling is to keep taxes low. Re-orient spending priorities.
McCain—pork barrel projects need to be eliminated. He’ll veto all of them.

Steph questions candidates on role of VP:
McCain—everybody will be sure of who the president is.
Giuliani—VP should be capable and ready to take over. Responsibilities should be worked out between prez and VP.

Steph: Q: Fair Tax?
Huckabee—strong supporter
Romney—good plan, but not that good. Gives an example of how it could hurt new housing..
Giuliani—eliminate death tax. Fair tax, flat tax good plans, but too hard to get there.
McCain—alternative mininum tax must be eliminated.
Tancredo—I’m a co-sponsor of fair tax bill. Directs voters to boortz.
Brownback—move to optional flat tax.
Steph: (email from voter)What is a defining mistake of your life and why?
Hunter—I contemplated running as a democrat in the beginning.
Paul—(some rambling about the constitution…)
Huckabee—not taking care of my health from the beginning
Romney—when I first ran for office, I was deeply pro-life but said I wasn’t.
Giuliani—I only have 30 seconds? (laughter)
McCain—POW issue
Brownback—not tellling my family I love them enough.
T. Thompson—breast cancer in my family…I vow to fight for the women of the country.
T. Thompson—breast cancer in my family…I vow to fight for the women of the country.
Tancredo—it took a while before I realized that Jesus Christ was my personal savior.

Steph:(shows Bush clip on his vow in 1999 to restore honesty and integrity to oval office) Q: What will you restore to the oval office?
Tancredo—hope. Speaking out on the values of western civilization.
T. Thompson—open up the east wing to the best minds, democrats and republicans.
Brownback—rebuild the family. Stand for life, nominate justice who would overturn roe v wade.
McCain—I love this country and am the most prepared to fight the war on terror.
Giuliani—restore hope, build the future on optimism in the US like I did in NYC.
Romney—america is going to be strengthened by having a bigger military, stronger economy, stronger families.
Huckabee—remember the ordinary citizens, main street, not just wall street.
Paul—restore openness to govt. never use executive privilege.
Hunter—restore economic patriotism. Strengthen american manufacturing base, level the field vs. china.

Steph: THANK YOU ALL, IT’S BEEN A GREAT DEBATE.


Um…no, these are getting lamer every time out. this whole format just makes the candidates look stupid as they fight for "sound-bite" time.

(thanks to kathy sohar for snapping this pic, preserving this blogging experience for the ages...)

Obama sez he would invade Pakistan

is this guy ready for prime time??

NO.

let's see...he says iraq was a mistake and it's made us more vulnerable now than before 9/11...because invading a muslim country is a recruiting tool used by al-quaeda...

...Pakistan is a muslim country with a large al-queada presence...with nuclear weapons...admittedly with a military dictator who we've enlisted as an ally in the "war on terror"...who is living under constant threat of death from the jihadis...

...the US uses Pakistani airspace to supply our efforts in Afghanistan...would this still be possible if we INVADE Pakistan?...


Hillary...let's leave this guy off of the ticket.